My Dearest Mina
by akira101
Summary: After disappearing for two weeks, Lucy writes Mina a letter explaining her actions in 1x06.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Dracula.

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_My Dearest Mina,_

_I must apologise, first, for my absence over these past two weeks. My mother has informed me of your continual visits to the house and I am sorry if my late return has been of any burden to you. It was not my intention to worry you; it was simply the time I needed to garner some clarity of thought._

_So too must I apologise for this letter. Likely it is cowardly of me to reach out to you in such an impersonal manner, but I fear that the proper words might fail me if I were to see you again so soon. And if not the proper words then at least the way I would hope to speak them; a pen is far more easily contained than my tongue, and of that I know you would agree. Simply, these words are too important to me to get lost in tears or accusations. I need you to understand them._

_Where to begin, though, I do not know. I have spent so many of these last few days dwelling on what you might think of me; wondering whether or not your feelings towards me have been irreparably damaged. I have imagined the best ways to approach you should your response to me be anger or betrayal or disappointment, and I have written my apologies a thousand times in my mind before now. Indeed, you are the only thing I have thought of since I left. It does remain, however, that I cannot construct this letter around how I suppose you might feel, nor can I assume that your thoughts of me have been as consuming as mine of you. (On the contrary, I would confidently say that they have not.) What I can do, though, is explain myself to you in hopefully the soundest way possible, and allow you to do with that explanation what you will._

_Mina, above everything else, you are_ always_ my friend first, and that is something I need you to realise. One of my greatest fears is that you have discarded every moment of our friendship till now as merely pretence on my behalf. You questioned me about this that day and you must believe me when I say that nothing could be further from the truth. For eight years you have been the truest friend I have ever had, and one thoughtless, impulsive moment does not erase that – does not come close to it, really. If there is one thing you take from this letter, please let it be the certain knowledge that stripped of whatever else I might feel for you, you would still be the most important person in my life._

_You are family to me, sister._

_Yet – and I hesitate to begin this sentence with that word because it tends to diminish those which precede it –_ yet,_ I do feel more for you than friendship alone. Of all the things I did so very wrong that day, the most regrettable is that I tried to kiss you. I will not lie to you and pretend it is not something I have thought of (and truly I am sorry if that notion makes you uncomfortable), but when I say that I feel something else for you, something more than friendship, I do not mean, as that kiss may have suggested, that 'more' has anything to do with sex._

_Or at the very least, it is not defined by it._

_Rather it is more love and appreciation than I ever imagined myself capable of feeling for another person. When I look at the friendships around me I see women with something to gain from one another, whether it be comfort or support or open ears. Do not misunderstand me, you have certainly given me those things, but when I look at you I do not search for the ways I can bettered. It is not love for the ways in which you humour me or appreciation for the times you have quelled my tears. I simply love the person you are._

_Am_ in_ love with the person you are._

_You are brave beyond comparison, Mina. When I think of ambition I no longer think of men; in fact I would listen to you speak of medicine for hours without understanding a single word just to hear the passion in your voice. You are as concerned by wealth as you are by gossip, the latter much to my chagrin in all fairness. You are kind when others are not and gentle even at times when you should not be, and I suppose in that way you are as silly as you are intelligent._

_And just in case you feel inclined to call these the feelings of sisters, you are absolutely, unequivocally the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I look at you sometimes, Mina, and cannot breathe for how lovely you are, and regrettable though it may be, I did very much want to kiss you that day._

_I hope I have not confused you more by these words; calling you sister in one breath and speaking of you as I have in the next. I imagine you will have questions for me when we do see each other, and if I'm able and my pride permits it, I will give you whatever answers you seek._

_Please,_ please,_ remember, Mina, that I would sooner have your friendship than anything else. Truly, the thought of losing you is more than I can bear._

_I will be at home this evening should you choose to come find me._

_Lucy_

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**A/N:** I'm 90% sure this is going to be a WIP, or at the very least I'll do a follow up chapter where Mina visits Lucy. If you're interested in that, please let me know, and as always, any sort of feedback is welcome. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Dracula.

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She never thought herself a nervous person, but her fingers haven't sat idle since she sent the letter off with her housekeeper four hours ago. Picking on a stray stitch of thread on her dress, she thinks this is what men must feel like when they court women.

Or innumerably worse, given what she stands to lose.

She should be occupying her time with something – _anything_ to distract herself from the anxiety that turns her stomach, but beyond controlling the visceral urge to be sick she can't find the focus for much else.

The risk she has taken in explaining her feelings to Mina isn't lost on her; in fact it took every modicum of her self-restraint to keep from running after her housekeeper as soon as she left her room. Though it was easy enough to muster the composure to write the letter itself, she did so with the thought of Mina reading it only at the corner of her mind, and now that her words are out there she thinks her confession might have been better left unsaid. At least they could have returned to some semblance of normalcy if she had simply attributed her actions to illness or delirium; blamed it all on the brainwashing of Lady Jayne Wetherby if it came to it. As it is now she is all too aware of what her words might cost her, if not their relationship altogether then certainly the ease of their affection, certainly the closeness that had them calling each other sister.

The streets below her window are growing quiet, people migrating indoors for tea and supper though it's not yet dark. A glance at her clock and it's half eight – her mother would have left for a dinner party some time ago, which she excused herself from attending under the guise of a migraine. It was doubtful that her mother had believed her; more likely was it that she had put her reluctance down to Alastair who would also be attending. She had attributed her two weeks away to their splitting, and though her mother still prods her for reasons why, she knows that to tell her would be foolish.

While surely there are circles for feelings as taboo as hers, her mother is outspokenly not among them.

As to Mina's outlook towards it, she honestly has no clue. Perhaps it would have been smarter to mention it in passing, bring up the gossip of certain people's proclivities if only to garner some idea as to how her friend felt about it. As it is now, she can only pray that Mina is as modern with her views on sexuality as she is with her career.

A familiar carriage pulls up on the street below her window and a knot of dread coils inside her. The hours of fretful waiting had almost convinced her that Mina wouldn't come and now, as Mina rushes out of the carriage to her front door, Lucy thinks she might have preferred it. Pulling away from the window, she scans the room looking for something to do, to give herself at least the appearance of busyness so it isn't entirely obvious she's spent her evening thus far dithering in her anxiety, but too soon heels are clacking down the marble corridor outside and there's a sharp knock on her door.

Without pause for her response, the door swings open and Mina, slightly dishevelled and entirely determined, bursts inside, the butler trailing on her heels

"Apologies for the intrusion, Miss Westenra," he says. "I explained to Miss Murray that you weren't feeling well but she was very adamant–"

"Yes, Stephen, I was very adamant to see her, and seeing that she is out of bed and really not looking all that poorly, I would kindly ask you to give us a moment alone."

Stephen glances at Lucy for her approval and she nods to him, thanking him as he leaves.

The room falls quiet and it's just the two of them; the two of them and her letter, which, crinkling under Mina's tense grasp, seems to have a presence of its own. The damning reality of it hits her hard, like she's passed the Rubicon with just the ink of her pen and now there's nothing left to do but survive the fallout.

She pushes down the lump in her throat and turns back to the window, scraping together the remains of whatever collectedness she used to write the letter in the first place.

"I could have had a migraine, you know," she says. The dry attempt at levity is the best she can manage.

"Contrary to what you would have your entire staff believe, you have never had a migraine in your life," Mina replies, and despite herself, Lucy smiles.

"You know me too well, Mina."

A pregnant pause follows and Mina's dress rustles behind her, drawing closer until she feels her presence at her back.

"It is strange," Mina starts. "How much I know that to be true and yet how completely false it seems."

Lucy's head dips, her hands clutching the edge of the window sill.

It's a crippling sort of irony. Sharing themselves with each other had always brought them closer but _this_, the thing she has held closest to her heart, the secret it took the most courage to reveal – well, it very well might tear them apart.

"Will you not look at me?" Mina asks.

Lucy swallows thickly, fighting off the sting behind her eyelids. "I am afraid to."

Mina pulls her around to face her, a gentle hand cradling her cheek to turn her gaze upwards. She resists at first – she hasn't looked at Mina properly since she arrived – then the hand is under her chin and lifting her face and there she is; all blue eyes and sympathetic smile, all love and affection and _friendship _like she hasn't just jeopardised everything. She should be relieved but there's an unwelcome paradox to Mina's touch; a soothing she both craves and cannot stomach, not when it feels as much of pity as it does of comfort.

Her chin quivers.

"Oh, Lucy–"

"Please, Mina!" Lucy interrupts, brushing off Mina's touch. "I cannot bear for you to comfort me over this."

She crosses the room to create some distance between them and Mina's arms fall limp to her sides.

"Then what am I to do? What am I to say about this?"

"You are free to say whatever it is you feel," Lucy wavers despite the upward tilt of her chin.

"I've no idea what to feel!" Mina exclaims suddenly. "I was so angry at you for lying to me but then you disappeared. I could not reach you and as the days passed I just put it down to a simple fondness or crush but _this_," she brandishes the letter between them, "what you speak of – it is love."

"Then there should be little confusion."

"Confused is _all_ that I am! I must have sat for two hours after reading your letter trying to make sense of it. I was of half my mind not to believe it at all."

Lucy bristles. "Such inclinations do exist, you know."

"Of _course_ they do. It is not the inclination for a woman that puzzles me – surprises me certainly given the company you keep – but that you feel this way for _me_? That I cannot make sense of!"

"What do you wish for me to say?"

"It's more a matter of what I wish you hadn't!"

Lucy balks, as if the words have catapulted straight from Mina's mouth into her stomach.

"God, I didn't mean that," Mina rushes, coming toward her.

Lucy fends off the oncoming touch. "I rather think you did."

"Lucy, please," Mina says, stopping short. "That was a stupid thing to say. I don't…I'm glad you told me."

Lucy nods though there's no real sincerity to it. Gladness has been the furthest emotion from Mina's response to her thus far.

Mina sighs like she knows it too and sits down at the dresser. "Can I ask you something?"

Lucy slumps down on the edge of her bed and waits. .

"How…how long?" Mina ventures uncertainly.

She glances down to the floor. Honesty was far less daunting in writing.

"Long enough for me to realise there is nothing I can do about it," she answers vaguely.

"What do you mean?" Mina asks.

She looks back up and shrugs helplessly. "That loving you this way is not a choice. When I first recognised what I felt for you I hated it; did everything in my power to stop feeling it and I've not uttered a word because I knew that to speak of it would ruin us."

"Then what made you?"

She snaps the fraying stitch of thread from her dress. "False hope can make a fool of anyone," she mutters.

After all, two years of carefully watching her words and practicing indifference hadn't kept it from making a fool of her.

"And now?" Mina shifts uneasily. "Do you still hate what you feel for me?"

Lucy shakes her head. "One can only loathe their own feelings so much before it becomes an exercise in futility. What I feel for you is invariably tied to the time we spend together, and that I love so earnestly my other desires seldom matter."

Mina frowns. "But still those desires exist – _have_ existed for a time it seems. How am I to look back on our friendship and not see it coloured differently?"

Lucy looks away. Her unresponsiveness swells between them, and though it reeks of an apathy she doesn't truly feel, she can't bring herself to speak. It isn't that she has no answer to give; she just doubts there are words convincing enough that could paint their friendship a colour that would hold them together.

Standing from her chair, Mina comes to sit beside her. Though the distance between them is only slightly more than usual she notices it all the same.

"Please, the question is genuine," Mina starts. "You are so very important to me and I detest the idea of seeing our friendship in another light, but are we not changed by this?"

She glances down and sees her letter still folded in Mina's hand. Taking it from her, she opens it on her lap and scans it, grimacing as she does. With Mina next to her it all seems like the forlorn ramblings of a school girl.

In a quick, decisive motion, she tears the paper in two.

"Lucy! Why would you do that?" Mina says, taking the torn pieces from her hands and laying them together on the bed.

With a wide swipe of her hand, she sweeps them away. "Because I would sooner take every word of it back than lose you."

"You aren't going to lose me."

"Am I not losing you right now?" Her voice trembles as it rises. "That you might see our friendship differently kills me, Mina, because for every moment I have wanted you as something more than a friend there have been a hundred where I have needed you _just_ as a friend!"

Covering her mouth as her tears fall, she rushes to the other side of the room. Her arm curls tightly around her stomach and it does little to stem the sudden onslaught of nausea she feels.

"I need you, too," Mina says shakily. "But can we honestly go back to dressing and dancing and sleeping together as if that day and this conversation never happened?"

"Yes! In a second, yes!" Lucy exclaims, spinning around. "But it is not a question of whether _I_ can – I would rather die than lose what we have–"

"Will you stop speaking as if our friendship means more to you than I?" Mina interjects, standing up. "I have shared everything of myself with you yet you've kept this secret–"

An outburst of watery laughter cuts her off.

"Would we be here if you shared _everything_?" Lucy asks. "I will not apologise for keeping this from you. What good has come of you knowing?"

"The truth has come of it! After everything we've been through am I not entitled to it?"

A precarious second passes; air sucked into her lungs to throw words back at Mina but instead her shoulders abruptly fall.

She wipes the wetness from her cheeks. "Perhaps you are, but if this is to be the cost of the truth then I am sorry for speaking it."

Mina visibly falls too, sitting back on the bed and burying her face into her hands. "Only we can decide what this will cost us."

Lucy nods but it's not the comforting assertion it should have been. Quite frankly, it isn't up to her at all. If it were she wouldn't feel this sickly anxiety that frays her from the inside out, that bleeds outwards from the pit of her gut until it's in the dry cotton of her mouth and – a glance in the mirror – in the rigid line of her lips and her own tired eyes.

She looks away distastefully.

She's never worn vulnerability well at all.

A soft knock on the door punctures the air around them, and on her call, her housekeeper enters with a tray of silverware.

"Tea, Miss Westenra?"

She doesn't know whether to be grateful for the interruption or to snap.

"Gin might better suit an evening such as this," Mina says, and it's almost as if she knew her predicament.

In all likelihood, she probably did. It would hardly be the first time Mina tempered one of her outbursts.

Her housekeeper turns and leaves the room.

"Good thing my mother isn't here to see this," she says. "I can only use Alastair as a scapegoat for my troubles for so long before she'll grow wary."

Mina leans back on her hands and looks at her curiously. "Did you feel nothing for him?"

She checks for any trace of judgement in Mina's eyes but finds nothing but honest interest.

Shrugging, she takes a seat at her dresser. "His wealth appeased my mother, his company appeased me and I thought him handsome. To be with him felt safe and effortless but…it wasn't enough."

Mina nods, and then a small smirk plays across her face. "He _was_ a tad overzealous."

Lucy raises a surprised eyebrow and laughs. "Now you tell me what you think of him?"

"I believed you two would be married someday," Mina says, raising her hands in a faux show of surrender. "I didn't want to speak ill of him."

And the breath of levity is gone.

"Yet I would speak ill of Jonathan for days," Lucy mumbles.

Mina picks up one half of the torn letter and fiddles with the shredded edge. "Even I might speak ill of him recently."

Lucy holds back one of her usual underhanded remarks. "And why's that?"

"His work with Alexander Grayson is changing him," Mina says. "Heaven knows I am not one to speak but this new ambition of his – it is making him blind to the people around him."

"To be a man without ambition and be _your_ fiancé – well, I imagine he feels a certain amount of pressure to excel," Lucy replies evenly.

Mina looks at her surprised. "Are you actually defending him?"

"_Please_," Lucy scoffs exorbitantly, and takes no small pleasure from the chuckle it pulls from Mina.

The door swings open and her housekeeper enters again. Two glasses are placed on the dresser and Lucy thanks her as she bids them a good evening.

Picking them up, she walks over to Mina and sits beside her.

"But no more talk of Jonathan," Mina says, taking a glass from her.

"I will not break, you know."

For a long second Mina just looks at her.

"As if anything could break you."

It's a warm sentiment and Lucy takes it as such but somehow it feels remarkably empty. If Mina had seen her a week ago…

She lifts her drink to her lips and takes a liberal gulp.

"Shall I leave mine for you?" Mina laughs.

Lucy grimaces as she swallows. "Best start drinking to be safe."

Mina follows suit, downing her own generous mouthful, then turns sombre as she swirls the liquid around in her glass.

"I must apologise for how I treated you that day. The things I said and making you leave was…unbelievably cruel."

"But not entirely unfounded," Lucy says, though the pain of that afternoon is still woundingly fresh. "I said I would not apologise for keeping this secret but I don't begrudge you your anger."

"I'm not angry, not anymore. I'm…disappointed you couldn't tell me sooner, hurt though I understand your secrecy entirely. Mostly I'm just confused." Mina tips back her drink again. "God, I'm so very, very confused."

Lucy hesitates.

"I did write that I would answer any questions you ask. If you are confused I can try to explain."

Mina looks down to her drink. "I cannot decide if clarity would be better or worse for us."

Truth be told, she can't either. Lies and secrets haven't exactly worked for her yet, but complete openness might be too much for them – too much for her to speak and especially too much for Mina to hear.

"Alright," Mina starts, swallowing the rest of her drink and taking a deep, fortifying breath. "You said before that false hope made you say something. Did I give you that hope?"

"No, though at the time I thought you did," Lucy says. "Lady Jayne Wetherby engaged me at one of our social lunches and called me out on my feelings. She invited me to her house; said we had so much in common it would be a waste not to meet. She flirted with me outlandishly over tea but it seemed all she wanted was to push me towards you. She convinced me that you felt the same."

"Why would she do that?" Mina asks.

"Honestly, I've no clue. But it was nice for a moment, to have someone who understood."

And it was. Even in hindsight, with all the possibly irrevocable damage that came of that meeting, with the woeful awareness that she was manipulated to some unknown end, the simple freedom to speak was invigorating. Not only that, but being touched by a woman, even if it wasn't Mina, had singed her to the bone. Objectively it was nothing, a brush of a hand against her breast and ribs that while overtly deliberate barely even lingered, but still she had felt like a lamb before a lion, entirely inept to do anything but sit and fumble to grasp the fast unravelling threads of her poise.

Mina pulls the glass cradled in her hand from her and steals a sip. Handing it back, she looks apologetic and scared all at once.

"I did something very, _very_ bad while you were gone."

"What?" Lucy asks nervously.

"I may have spoken to someone about this and–"

"Please don't tell me your father knows!"

"Of course not," Mina dismisses. "I was upset one night and Allie saw me – you know how much I trust her – and I told her what happened. I didn't say your name but of course she assumed. She said she thought we were already romantic!"

"You told your chamber maid?" Lucy asks in disbelief.

"Are you not listening?" Mina says. "I said she thought we were _romantic_."

"I heard you. Is she dull or has she just slept through your entire engagement?" she deadpans.

Mina ignores her. "She called it a 'romantic friendship'; she said they weren't uncommon in women our age before they marry. Friendships where women are affectionate and sleep together and even kiss and you are going to think me awfully naïve for saying this but I couldn't help but wonder if that is what we have. If _that_ is what you want more of."

"Mina, that isn't–"

"I know it may sound odd but it's an apt description for us, isn't it?" Mina asks in a rush, taking one of her hands and pulling it to her lap. "We are so close and you wrote it yourself – your trying to kiss me wasn't an action defined by sex but by love; a love I feel for you, too. Is it possible you just want a more romantic friendship with me rather than–"

"Stop, Mina!" Lucy exclaims, wrenching her hand from Mina's as she jumps from her seat. "I am not a child confused about what she feels."

"No! I only thought that–"

"You _hoped_," Lucy corrects. "And I understand why you would but let me be resoundingly clear, just because I euphemise it as something 'more' or something 'else' to save embarrassment, my feelings are not those of a friendship, romantic or otherwise."

"But if all you want is to kiss then–"

"My god, Mina, please don't make me say it!" Lucy cries. "Have you no idea how mortifying this is for me? How embarrassing it is to have to defend my feelings towards you."

"There's no need to be embarrassed," Mina says.

Lucy fists her hands in agitation. "Are you being purposefully obtuse right now? Or was telling me to leave that day not the most resolute rejection you've ever handed anyone?"

Her voice breaks and Mina inhales sharply. Understanding seeps into her eyes, her head falling into her hands.

"Could I be more selfish, do you think?" Mina asks without looking up.

Lucy doesn't answer. It isn't that she thinks Mina selfish – far from it, really – but truthfully she has neither the energy nor the fortitude to placate her.

"I'm sorry," Mina continues. "I think I'm just…searching for ways to turn this into something familiar, something I know how to deal with. I don't mean to belittle you."

Lucy sighs. "You haven't. But if clarity is really what you want then you must understand, what I feel for you is no different to what you feel for Jonathan."

Mina nods, and wrings her hands in her lap. "Forgive me for asking this, but how did you know? How did you realise that what you felt was more than friendship?"

Lucy purses her lips. "Like I said, for the longest time I didn't realise it. But then I started…"

She trails off, eyes flickering away.

"Started what?" Mina prods, leaning forward.

Her skin prickles, cheeks growing warm under Mina's heavy, expectant stare. She turns away and walks to the window.

The distance only helps a little.

"Dreaming," she replies, resting her head against the pane. "Infrequently enough that I could dismiss them for a while but eventually they grew more…perplexing. Not unlike yours of Alexander Grayson, I imagine."

"How did you know?"

Her arms fold around herself. "My dear, after the show at your engagement party it wasn't hard to guess."

She huffs a quiet, scornful laugh. What a sorry fool she had been, to think that Mina might have dreamt of her.

"Once the feeling trickled into my waking hours there wasn't really a question as to how I felt." She turns back to Mina and the strangest look passes over her face; acceptance first, then something far more difficult to decipher.

"Have I made you uncomfortable?"

Mina shakes her head. An unsteady half smile flickers across her lips. "No, darling."

Lucy isn't convinced at all.

There is a small consolation in the term of endearment, though, because for as long as she can remember, from the very beginning of their friendship it seems, she has been always Mina's darling Lucy.

My darling Lucy Mina would say, my dearest Mina she would reply.

With far and few exceptions.

Moving to the dresser, she sits down to unpin her hair. It feels forced and wholly unnecessary, but after that particular confession it's a moment of normality she desperately needs.

Thankfully, Mina takes it as the dismissal it was intended to be, and instead of asking her more questions, she falls back onto the bed with an exaggerated sigh, arms splayed.

"Tired, my dear?" Lucy asks, picking up her brush to comb her hair into place.

"Utterly," Mina says. "I told Father not to expect me home tonight. I hope that's alright."

Lucy tries to hide her surprise. "Of course. Do you have class in the morning?"

"Not till nine." Mina yawns, stretching her arms above her head. "I'll have to borrow a nightgown."

Lucy pauses. In all the different ways she imagined this evening going, she never really accounted for this.

"Shall I call for Juliet?"

It doesn't sound as nonchalant as she hoped.

Mina sits up, unamused. "Don't be ridiculous."

Lucy watches Mina in the mirror as she stands and approaches her. At her side, Mina turns and lifts her hair to reveal the vertical line of clasps travelling down her back.

She hesitates, and Mina's stubborn eyes find hers in the mirror. "I won't have us be awkward, do you hear? We're not children fumbling at the sight of skin."

_We're_. Of course Mina would say that.

It's a small gesture, a barely perceptible show of unity that would be overlooked by any other, but when it comes to Mina there's little she doesn't notice. It's kindnesses such as these that are part and parcel of why she fell in love with her.

Standing up, Lucy unhooks the clasps. She steps back to allow Mina room to step out of her dress, then picks it up and lays it over the back of her chair. She waits as Mina undoes her corset cover and slips it from her shoulders.

As she reaches to untie the knot at the top of the corset, Mina clears her throat and it's enough to make her falter.

"What is it?" Mina asks.

Her fingers linger at the half-undone knot. "If you're pretending to be fine with this for my sake, I wish you wouldn't."

"I _am_ fine," Mina assures her. "I'm not just being wilfully optimistic here, thinking we can simply continue on as we always have. I just...can we not have one night to be us again?"

"We can try," she says, and smiles more for Mina's sake than her own.

She finishes unlacing the corset and leaves Mina to do the rest. The night is warm so she retrieves two sleeveless nightgowns from her chest of drawers and hands one to Mina, then turns to ready herself for bed.

Slipping the nightgown over her head, she turns around to see Mina already beneath the covers, eyes upon her, and on her face is the same indecipherable look from before. Again Lucy is left without words to describe it and it irks her.

Normally she can read Mina so very well.

Lifting the covers, she climbs into bed. Mina turns onto her side to face her and though it's almost half nine, the dying natural light of day filters through the curtains to dance across her face.

Unbidden her own words from earlier today resurface.

_I look at you sometimes, Mina, and cannot breathe for how lovely you are._

Writing those words in her letter she had wondered what Mina would feel when she read them. Over and over the questions had tumbled through her mind. Would she be disgusted or uncomfortable or, if Lucy was lucky, would she simply be flattered. Did she assume that 'sometimes' meant moments of extravagance; when clad in some elaborate evening gown she would enter a room, and not a single head including Lucy's wouldn't turn. Or did she know that it was in plainer moments such as this, when her hair fell unkempt across Lucy's pillow, when she was tired and natural in a state no one else could see, that Lucy was most enamoured by her.

Of course she was overthinking it – likely Mina had glazed over the words or forgotten them, lost as they were in a far more shocking profession of love – but still the frightful thought occurs to her…

What would Mina think if she knew she couldn't breathe, lying next to her now?

She turns away and looks to the ceiling.

"So Kent is where you disappeared to this past fortnight?" Mina asks.

Lucy nods. "My cousin's estate. The manor and grounds are so preposterously large I hardly saw Kate or her husband at all. It offered me plenty of space to think."

And indeed it had. A little too much at times in all honesty; there was only so much of her own company that was good for her. The first week was spent stewing as much as it was recovering, hour after hour sequestered away in a secluded rotunda that saw far more of her tears than Mina had tonight. But with the fresh air and solitude had eventually come clarity, or at least some impression of it, and her grim melancholy had given way to thoughts of productivity, to mental rehearsals of what she would say and the perfect way to say it, and finally to fostering the dignity that afternoon had so entirely stripped her of.

It was hardly a complete success but she wasn't the shattered shell of a woman she was when she first arrived.

"It would be nice to get away from London for a time," Mina says.

Lucy purses her lips, gathering all the indifference she can manage. "Any idea where you'll be taking your honeymoon?"

"There hasn't been much talk of the wedding lately let alone the honeymoon."

Mina doesn't elaborate, just falls quiet and studies her, her stare like lead on Lucy's skin.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Sorry," Mina says, rolling onto her back.

Lucy looks over to her. "For what?"

Mina shrugs. "I think I just realised how truly wonderful you've been to me. To think that you would've said nothing if Lady Wetherby had not interfered, that you would have continued organising everything for me without thought to yourself…" She looks at her apologetically. "Is this the wrong thing to say?"

"I am no martyr," Lucy dismisses. "Organising your engagement party felt like the only way I could control my feelings. If all my energy was being poured into making that night perfect there would be none left to do something stupid." She lets out a disparaging laugh, and adds, "Clearly I should've started planning your wedding immediately."

Saying it aloud, the thought sickens her. She had only just begun looking at wedding dresses for Mina the afternoon she…well, _that_ afternoon, and even then it was with an eye concerned with fashion rather than what Mina would like to wear. The one dress she did suggest to Mina was so fancifully obnoxious she _knew_ she would hate it, and if truth be told that was the only reason she had suggested it in the first place.

Planning the engagement party was vastly more harrowing than she had just made out, too. Other than providing a keen distraction by occupying most of her time, the only saving grace was the fact that Mina wasn't married yet and hopefully, with her studies and Jonathan's new work, they would have an exceptionally drawn-out engagement. Then she would still have time to–

She scoffs beneath her breath.

As if she ever actually planned on using that time before her lunch with Lady Jayne.

Still, there were occasions, more often than not in the dull hour she spent in bed before falling asleep, where she took solace in the notion of having time left to say something. She would imagine stealing Mina away, sometimes from one of her classes where they were safe from Jonathan's presence, sometimes at the very last minute before the wedding ceremony, and in some private corner she would kiss her. At first Mina would recoil in shock too stunned for words, but then, as would happen in most of her other dreams and fantasies, Mina would be the one to kiss her. Hands would thread through her hair and Mina would press against her, and she would know beyond any doubt that Mina wanted her as much as she did her.

Now the only thing she knows beyond any doubt is that she'll never indulge in such fanciful thoughts again.

A shaky breath is drawn beside her. She looks over to Mina and tears are swelling in her eyes, and without thinking Lucy is on her side and reaching up to Mina's cheek.

"What is it?" she rushes.

Mina's brow creases as if she's annoyed with her own emotions. "It's nothing – just a silly train of thought."

"It isn't nothing," Lucy counters, though from the remorseful look on Mina's face, she rather wishes it was.

"One night to be us again just sounded terribly impossible all of a sudden," Mina mutters. "Honestly all I actually want is for us to be able to comfort each other, to be able to hold you, but I can't now, can I?"

Lucy falters. "Are you asking me if you can or telling me that you can't?"

"I don't know," Mina says. "Does it make a difference?"

Probably a marked one, but instead of dwelling on it she nudges Mina's shoulder.

"Turn over."

Mina hesitates. "Can you…"

Lucy doesn't answer, just rolls over herself so that she faces away from Mina. An arm curls around her body and the warm length of Mina presses against her back. Faintly, she feels Mina's breath against her neck.

It's familiar and at the same time not, because the only time they really engage in this sort of thing is when one of them is upset. Mina had held her like this when her grandmother had passed a year ago, and she had done the same for Mina not two months before during her brief parting from Jonathan. For that reason, it makes sense that Mina would want it now; the evening, and in all likelihood the last two weeks as well, have drained the both of them it seems.

"Is this too much?" Mina asks.

She looks over her shoulder. "Of course not."

A hand falls lightly on her arm.

"Then relax, will you?"

She turns back, lets her body fall, and a tautness she wasn't even aware of dissolves from her limbs. Day after day of emotional exhaustion seems to evaporate with it, and as she accepts the comfort, for the very first time that night, she doesn't fixate on the implications of it or what Mina might be thinking.

It's the most normal, the most at ease she has felt in weeks.

Pulling Mina's arm closer around her, she closes her eyes.

"We'll figure it out tomorrow – together," Mina says, punctuating the last word with a squeeze to her wrist.

Lucy nods but the hand remains there, the pad of Mina's thumb stroking the soft flesh on the inside of her wrist. It's a tired and mindless motion and she sinks into it, like that square inch of skin is reaping all the comfort she needs and indeed it might be; such a simple, intimate touch is certainly more than she had hoped for.

In all fairness, a few minutes to say her piece and even the smallest inkling that they might continue as friends would have gratified her, so _this_, all of this –Mina wanting to spend the night with her, Mina initiating their embrace, Mina fairly demanding her aid to undress – well it almost strains credulity, really.

Knowing Mina as she does though, perhaps she should have given her more credit.

_Kind when others are not, and gentle, even at times when she should not be_.

Just as she had written.

Now if only kindness could get them through tomorrow and the possibly uncomfortable days thereafter, she would count herself truly blessed.

* * *

It's dark.

The small light that had permeated the curtains is gone and the room is only barely made visible by the light of the moon outside. Something has woken her, though in the groggy state of a person just pulled from a dream she can't yet tell what. Then there – on the back of her shoulder – the lightest whispering of something, feather soft and trembling, warm and...

_Mina. _

It can't be.

She feels it more clearly then, two full lips moving up her shoulder to press softly at the line of her neck. They linger there, dragging over the same small spot of skin and it's all she can do not to squirm beneath the attention. What is happening? It's possible Mina might be asleep – likely dreaming of Grayson again for all _she_ knows – but then a hand skims across her stomach and it's too deliberate a movement for someone lost in sleep.

Mina _is_ kissing her, and it's awful in a way she never expected.

"Mina, what are you doing?"

A sharp gasp and lips vanish from her skin.

Mina might not have been asleep, but she most definitely thought she was. If that makes her feel better or worse, she cannot tell.

"Mina?" she urges when no answer comes.

"I…I don't know," whispers Mina, her hand tense under Lucy's grasp.

The noncommittal answer _definitely_ makes her feel worse.

A firm grip on her hand, she unwraps Mina's arm from around her. "Please don't insult me with your pity."

"It is not pity," Mina hastily replies.

"Then what is it?"

She doesn't believe her at all.

"I..."

She sits up abruptly, not waiting for Mina to find the right words to speak. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and sits there motionless, trying to find composure in the distance between them but Mina is quick to follow her.

Kneeling behind her, Mina reaches out to touch her shoulder. "I might not know what it was but I _do_ know that it wasn't pity. I'm…I'm sorry if it wasn't what you wanted."

Lucy laughs humourlessly. "It is exactly what I want and you know it."

"Then what's wrong?" Mina asks.

"I may want it but _you_ don't," she says. "You've shown me more kindness and understanding tonight than I thought possible but still that much is clear."

"At least it's clear to one of us."

Lucy doesn't answer. She's been fed enough false hope to recognise when it's being offered, and honestly she can't stomach the inevitable miserable emptiness of another bite of it.

Mina sighs. "I cannot have this conversation with you in the dark."

She leans over to the bedside table and retrieves the wooden box of matches from the first drawer. Lighting one, she walks to the candelabra that sits atop the mantle opposite the bed and transfers the flame to three candles.

"Clearer, my dear?" Lucy asks, sharper than she intended though she doesn't care to rectify it.

Mina returns to sit beside her. "Clearer of what it is not."

Lucy frowns. That makes one of them. Again. "If it is not pity then it is fear."

"And what am I scared of?" Mina asks.

"Of tomorrow, probably," Lucy replies. "Of what it might mean for us."

"That might be true but it doesn't explain what I'm feeling–"

"Do you even know what you're feeling?"

Mina falters, her hands fidgeting in her lap. "I don't know, I–"

Lucy's laboured sigh cuts her off.

"Won't you be patient with me?" Mina asks sharply. "You've had ample time to discover your feelings and I've had two weeks of confusion, one night of curiosity and a thoughtless urge to kiss you."

"I'm not here to sate your curiosities," Lucy says bitterly.

Mina fists her hands. "Will you stop putting words into my mouth? It's more than a curiosity, I'm sure of it."

"It isn't." Standing from the bed, Lucy walks away. She can't handle this conversation for much longer.

Mina follows behind her."Why are you so adamantly against it?"

"Because I've made my peace with this!" she exclaims suddenly, spinning around. "And you're standing here giving me hope in a hopeless situation."

"Who says it is hopeless?"

Lucy huffs. Had Mina not been saying that all night? In different words and in her silence, maybe, but nevertheless the message was all the same, wasn't it?

"Of course it is hopeless. Even if I had let you continue it would still be hopeless."

Mina frowns. "What? Why would it–"

"Because you are to be married!" Lucy throws her arms up. "Mina, I can live with never having you but to have you once and then watch you marry Jonathan, I just…I can't."

"And what if I didn't?"

She emits a mirthless laugh. "Who are you trying to fool? Jonathan, Grayson, it does not matter, they are all men."

"Michael, Charles, Alastair!" Mina rattles off. "They were all men. What is the difference?"

"The difference is I've felt this for years and you've felt this for what? Hours?"

"So?"

"_So_?" Lucy cries, turning away. "Mina, you do not look at me as I look at you."

Mina grabs her arm and pulls her back around. "I look at you with love!"

"And I look at you and imagine how you would feel beneath me!" She wrenches her arm away. "You cannot tell me it is the same."

"I cannot tell you it is different!"

A breathless second of silence.

Mina's shoulders heave, a steely resolution cementing itself in her eyes.

"_That_ is my biggest fear. Not losing you _or_ our friendship, but waking up one day with Jonathan and realising I chose wrong."

Lucy swallows thickly.

_This isn't happening. _

"You're right," Mina continues. "I've no idea what I'm feeling. But when you fell asleep before I didn't lie there thinking of the ways our friendship would have to change. I lay there wondering about the dreams you spoke of having and I...I let myself imagine them. It was the first time I had ever actively thought of what it might be like and you were lying there pressed against me and I didn't think I just…wanted to. That is not nothing, Lucy."

Mina stares at her hard, like she's ready to rebuke any argument she comes up with, but Lucy can only stare back in silence.

Why does she feel so sick? It's everything she has ever wanted to hear but…

She shakes her head.

…but it kills her, because no matter how sincere Mina's words might be they don't change anything, really – not the fact that she's engaged to a man who loves her, not the fact that Jonathan can give her things that Lucy can't.

As much as she has thought of all the reasons Mina _should_ be with her, she has equally thought of the reasons she should not, and soon enough Mina will think of them too.

It's easier, too, to feel and say things in the dead of the night when the world isn't awake to see them. In the safe space between the two of them it almost feels possible to want anything, but she has faced the stark reality of day enough times now to know that things always return to normal.

And she is not Mina's normal.

"What are you thinking?" Mina asks, stepping towards her.

She lets Mina unfold her arms and take her hands. "That despite your faith in my resilience you might just break me yet."

"I wouldn't, you know," Mina says.

Lucy squeezes her hands and forces a shaky smile. "You would not mean to."

The finality in her words brings them to a short and silent standstill and suddenly it's more than she can bear; Mina, standing so close to her, offering her everything and nothing at all at the exact same time, her eyes imploring her to – to what she doesn't know but even though the question evades her she's still struggling to say no. And the hope, the damn inkling of hope that's budding in her chest, that she wants to pluck at its roots but can't find the strength to, not when Mina is threading their fingers together and the only word she can read on her face is _please_.

But no.

She can't.

Scrounging the little resolve she still has, she starts to pull her hands away but Mina catches her fingers in a fast grip.

"I want you, Lucy."

The words are spoken so quietly that she barely hears them, but one look at the half stubborn, half fearful look in Mina's eyes and she can tell she didn't imagine them.

A hand touches her cheek, a soft, entreating caress that she almost crumbles into, would have if not for the way Mina's eyes flicker down to her lips.

Instead, a stab of panic jolts her.

"Don't," she interjects, putting her hand over Mina's to stop its movement on her face.

Still Mina moves towards her. Their foreheads touch and the contact ends there but even that is too much. Her eyes are growing hot again and it's absurd how crippling her fear is, alarming how entirely it overpowers whatever excitement she thought she would feel and leaves her sick with the thought that the last two weeks won't compare at all, not to the fallout of _this_ sort of hope – this real, unimagined hope that left untempered might ruin her for good.

She can't bring herself to move away.

"Please let me," Mina whispers, and reaches up to cradle her other cheek.

"Mina, please, I…I can't," her voice trembles.

"I won't if you don't want me to."

Lucy whimpers.

The words hang between them; a precarious challenge she can neither meet nor refuse.

"Do you?" Mina asks. "Do you want me to?"

A tear falls. "Please don't ask me that."

Mina brushes it away, her lips following the movement of her fingers to leave a prolonged kiss on her cheek.

"Say yes," Mina whispers.

Another kiss, closer to her lips.

"Please, Lucy. Just say yes."

Then, in the second Mina's breath is on her lips, to the chagrin of every fibre of her being still housing some modicum of logic, her resolve shatters.

"Yes."

A sharp gasp – hers she thinks – and Mina is pressing against her. It isn't fast or slow and Lucy doesn't move at all, _can't_ for the debilitating feel of Mina's lips moulded to hers, and still the fear remains lodged in her throat.

_This will break you. _

And probably it will, but at the same time it's building her in ways confusing to her, as if the pieces of herself she misplaced that afternoon are being handed back to her, whole and new, in the drag of a warm mouth across her own.

Mina pulls away and breath tremors against her lips.

"Please kiss me back."

The shaking plea pulls something deep within Lucy's stomach and she succumbs, fear gone, pressing hard against Mina who pushes back with new vigour, and all she can think as a tongue brushes against her lip is _how_ – how is it possible that after everything _Mina_ is the one asking for her kiss? It's too sudden, too easy not to have a hundred consequences she'll later lament but now, with her fear swallowed whole by hunger, she can't bring herself to care, doesn't want to care, not when this feels like the answer to every dream she has ever woken up from breathless and wanting in the middle of the night.

Gripping her nightgown at the hip, Mina pulls back. "This isn't too much?"

The question has barely left her lips before Lucy reaches her hand to Mina's neck and pulls her back in. Mina squeaks in surprise, and then wraps her arm more fully around Lucy's waist to bring her closer.

Gracelessly, they move to the bed.

"Tell me you're sure about this," Lucy pleads, pulling away only just enough to speak.

Mina twists their bodies and pushes Lucy lightly until she sits down. Standing in front of her, she brings her hands to the ties at the front of her nightgown and Lucy freezes.

_This definitely isn't happening. _

The ties loose, Mina slips the gown from her shoulders and lets it fall to the ground.

Her breath catches. It isn't that she hasn't seen Mina like this before, or glimpsed her at least the dozens of times they've dressed together, but there's something wholly different about the sight of her now, standing tall and bare before her, the orange light of the candles playing over her skin.

It's no small wonder she's even breathing at all, really.

"Do I seem sure to you?"

Though Mina's intent is clear, the flush of her cheeks betrays her. It's endearing if not entirely foolish, and without thought other than to wipe the insecurity from Mina's face, Lucy surges up to kiss her.

Mina's hands scramble to find the ties of Lucy's nightgown and quickly it lies next to hers on the floor.

"How have I never thought of this?"

Lucy pulls her harder against her. She's thought about it enough for the two of them. Time and time again though never quite like this, never with the subtle smell of Mina's camellia perfume or the stirring sound of her whimper, or every other detail her fantasies weren't intricate enough to conjure that combine together to overwhelm her, so entirely it seems that nothing else exists to her but Mina and the bed they stumble onto.

Beside one another, Lucy feels the smooth length of Mina moulded against her, her curves full and soft beneath roving hands that want Mina closer though no space subsists between them. She can barely track Mina's own hands on her and it strikes her that this might be it, the only night she has, one raw and frantic coupling before Mina changes her mind and says it can never happen again, and suddenly the hours till morning seem few and short.

With new urgency, she presses Mina backwards; her hand on Mina's hip urging her to lie down.

"Wait." Mina stops her with a hand to her chest.

Dread fills her and Mina must see it on her face because she leans forward to reclaim her lips; a slow, wet kiss that is solely for her benefit.

Mina pulls back. "I know you, Lucy, and I don't want you to think back on this tomorrow or days from now and wonder how much I really wanted it, so…" She pauses, her hand brushing a curl of hair from Lucy's face. "Will you lie down for me, please?"

Confused, Lucy lets herself be guided onto her back. Mina hovers over her at her side and trails a hand down her body, from her neck, down between the fall of her breasts and over the smooth plane of her stomach.

It's all she can do to stay still beneath the appraisal.

"You are divine, you know."

The soft expression of awe astounds her. Somehow those three words are more affirming, more exulting, than a hundred other compliments combined, and it's not just the words but the look on Mina's face, too, open and needy like she wants her.

Like she really, actually _wants_ her.

She pulls Mina down and they tangle together. A leg slides between hers and though it doesn't touch her, she keens at the feel of Mina's weight on top of her. There's a hesitant graze of fingers beneath the lower curve of her breast and she's hyperaware of their movement; the slow path they trace over the rise of her skin until Mina is holding her gently and her skin is prickling.

_God_, Mina's hand feels nothing like her own.

The kiss breaks and Mina's mouth is below her ear, against her neck and collarbone and chest, each lavish swipe of her descending tongue leaving behind a cool trail of wetness that makes her shiver. She opens her eyes to see dark curls spilling across her chest and she whimpers.

Mina stops and looks up at her.

"Please keep going," Lucy rushes, and for a second she's embarrassed by her eagerness but Mina allays it, her mouth dropping to the swell of her breast and drawing closer, higher, then closer still, until lips are wrapping around her and she can scarcely believe what she's seeing.

Should she even _be_ watching? Is it unseemly to…but heavens how can she not? This is – this is _Mina._ The same innocent, naïve Mina who spent years oblivious to her feelings, who misread so many loving words and gestures as less than romantic yet somehow, by some impossible twist of fate, it's _her_ tongue coaxing her taut, _her_ grip tightening on her breast as if _she_ was one who had yearned unrequitedly for so long.

It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense_. _

But then Mina slides up her body to kiss her and the friction makes her feel hot, like flames are licking through her just beneath the surface of her skin, and in an instant it makes all the sense that Alastair – that men – had not.

With a hard press of her lips, Mina forces her down into the pillow beneath her head. The assertiveness of it wreaks havoc in her and she strains back, a meagre attempt to meet Mina as firmly as she is meeting her but purposefully so; she wants the boldness, wants to yield to it simply because it's Mina and the very thought of yielding to her nearly unravels her.

A hand smooths down her thigh and Mina moves against her side, impatient, like she wants to be closer, but mostly like she's not thinking at all. She can feel Mina's breasts against hers and she trembles, grounding herself with a hand to the small of Mina's back, lost as to how such a small thing can affect her so profoundly.

Then lips are slowing on hers, tongue retreating, and the hand now on her stomach doesn't rest as much as linger. There's caution, a lot of it, and it's almost palpable the way it seems to shroud them. Hesitant fingers start to descend and she tenses, noticeably it seems because Mina falters and breaks their kiss.

Her breath falls heavy and shaking on Lucy's cheek.

"I've no idea what I'm doing."

She's never heard Mina sound so nervous before.

"Should've let me go first, shouldn't you?"Her voice quivers, and it's not the relaxing quip she hoped it would be, but still she feels Mina smile against her face.

"Just…help me?"

Lucy nods.

Mina's hand slips down and she lets her legs fall open for her touch. Another wary second and then–

Mina whimpers into her mouth.

"My god, Lucy."

Amazement, unadulterated want – things she never thought she would hear from Mina but there they are, utterly transparent, like she can't believe what she's feeling. At the slick sound of her own wetness she can't quite believe it either, and probably she should find it obscene but somehow it only excites her more; that Mina isn't shrinking away from her desire for her but relishing it, painting her with the reverent stroke of a single finger that slips deeper and closer each time.

Mina hesitates. A question.

"Yes."

Then Mina pushes inside and she can't hold back the cry in her throat. She clings to her, desperate and hard, and as Mina moves inside of her two years of yearning suddenly seem like nothing, an insignificant snapshot compared to the way Mina fills her again and again, no need for instruction other than the heave of her chest and the moans she can't capture.

She had no idea it could feel like this.

Her breaths come short; silent, staccato gasps that seem to dictate the pace of Mina's thrusts, then stopping altogether as a second finger fills her and she has to remind herself to breathe. Mina's breath sounds raggedly in her ear, her exertion coloured with strained whispers of her name – _Lucy, Lucy, Lucy_ – strung together over and over again in broken and needy syllables. It exhilarates her, and she might lose her mind just from the sound of her voice, would gladly give it away if only she could hear Mina speak her name that way again.

Her hips rise to meet the fingers pushing inside her. They drive against each other, no rhythm to their erratic thrusts, and the only word she can manage to think is _more_; a frantic chant of it that circles her head though she has no idea what could possibly be more than this.

This feels like everything.

But then Mina's lips are on hers, close-mouthed and pressing her down hard into her pillow again and she feels it – the _more –_ coiling in her stomach as her back arches. It consumes her, tendrils of pleasure radiating from her centre to curl her toes and clench her fists, one balled up in the sheets and the other clutching Mina as if to let go would be to disappear. Mina holds her, rides out the violent trembles of her body as she dissolves, like every fantasy and dream she ever had is dissolving too and all that's left is the wet and quivering mess that Mina has made her.

She is shattered. She's never fallen like that before.

_And what if it's the only – _no, she can't think about it. Not now.

"Lucy?"

She opens her eyes to see Mina above her and the depth of desire looking back at her catches her off guard. It's raw and open and it sends her blood rushing, and she doesn't want to wait, can't wait, and in a second Mina is beneath her, mirroring her impatience as she pulls her down to meet her.

The air is thick with the heavy scent of sex and sweat and it clouds her mind. There's no clarity, her hands are everywhere on Mina, like she can't leave an inch of her skin untouched while she has this opportunity and it's too fast, she's not doing it right, she should be taking more care and time but time seems suddenly sparse, a fast-draining hourglass trickling sand above her head and she can't upturn it, can't make the hours till morning come slow enough. She wants the sun to stop wherever it is and this night to be endless but it isn't, sooner or later Mina will come to her senses and please, God, let it be later, she needs to make her fall like she did, needs it more than she needed it herself even though her need had felt immeasurable.

Her fingers are on her, inside her and _damn it_ she should have waited, should have asked as Mina had, but Mina is buckling into her, her hand fisted in her hair holding her fast to the crook of her neck. She can actually feel the racing thrum of a pulse beneath her lips and it compels her faster, and the wetness – heavens, is this what she had felt like to Mina? – it's everywhere, coating her fingers and it's all for her, impossible as it seems this is _all_ for her. She doesn't want it to end, she would keep this feeling forever if she could, with Mina clutching her like she's the only one who can bring her absolution and for now maybe she is.

_For now…_

_No! _

Panic seizes her chest. She's doing it all wrong. It's too soon, Mina's too close.

It can't be over yet.

She stops abruptly and buries her face into the pillow beside Mina's head.

"What's wrong?" Mina pants, breathless and worried.

She slips her fingers from Mina but otherwise doesn't move. She can't look at her.

Mina tries to coax her from the pillow. "Please talk to me."

Her eyes water and she clenches her jaw. How could she be so completely stupid? To rush, to not appreciate; to stop and let this stagnant, awkward _nothing_ happen instead of what was about to.

She sits up hastily and the concern on Mina's face grows ten-fold.

"Lucy, what is it?" Mina rushes, sitting up too and finding her hand on the bed.

She looks away. "I'm a prize fool is what it is."

"What are you talking about? That felt – it felt incredible."

"It's not that." She shakes her tears away, mustering the courage to speak. "But what if…what if this is the only chance I get? What if in that minute it was all over?"

"Do you think I would just put on my clothes and leave?"

"Not tonight," she says. "But tomorrow? When you remember that you have a fiancé you love and who loves you."

Mina flinches, like the word fiancé has struck some invisible chord of shock inside her and for a second, less than that, there is regret in her eyes. It disappears but then there is nothing, silence and waiting as Mina steadfastly avoids her gaze, and it's more destroying than any answer could have been.

She truly is an idiot.

Getting off the bed, she picks up her nightgown off the floor. She starts to put it on but Mina jumps up and snatches it from her.

"Will you give me a second to explain?"

Lucy ignores her. One rejection was more than enough for her.

She picks up the other nightgown and slips it over her head.

Mina groans and grabs her arm, forcing her to sit down on the bed. With the gown curled in her lap, Mina sits down beside her.

Lucy stiffens. "Put it on, will you?"

"I rather think I won't," Mina retorts bluntly. "Now we can both be uncomfortable."

What Mina has to be uncomfortable about, she doesn't know, but she curses her stubbornness all the same. But then, she can be stubborn, too, and for a tense and dragging minute she is, until from the corner of her eye she sees Mina deflate, clearing her throat awkwardly.

"I uhh…I slept with Jonathan."

Lucy looks at her bewildered and Mina rushes on.

"It was before you had said anything and I don't know why I didn't tell you, but–"

"Is this meant to be helping?"

Mina ignores her. "All I'm trying to say is that being with him was–"

"Please, I don't need to hear this!"

"Yes, you do!" Mina exclaims. "Because being with Jonathan, it doesn't even compare to being with you."

She stops. _How is that...she didn't even–_

"I don't have words for what you've made me feel, Lucy. But Jonathan...I know a woman's first time is meant to hurt but should I not have felt at least _some_ pleasure from watching his? God, just seeing the look on your face tonight I thought I might…" Mina trails off, cheeks pink.

The thought of what Mina's suggesting makes her stomach curl.

"You must understand, though, this is completely new to me. To have you as a friend one moment and to want you the next has turned my world around. I know I'm asking a lot of you, too much probably, but I need more than a night to figure things out."

Lucy sighs and drops her head. So fixed has she been in her own fear and anxiety it seems that she's forgotten how much Mina stands to lose. Far-fetched as the outcome still is, at least _she_ has an option that doesn't involve heartache. But Mina? Come to think of it, she doesn't envy her at all. To choose her is to lose Jonathan, to choose Jonathan...well, to remain her friend before tonight would have been struggle enough, but now, after everything that's happened, she might not have the strength for it.

"It _is_ too much to ask, isn't it," Mina says softly.

"No, no, it isn't! I'm just..." She heaves a heavy sigh. "I'm not making this terribly easy, am I?"

Mina nudges her shoulder with her own. "Please, you wouldn't be half as charming if you weren't so temperamental."

She smiles at the gentle tease. Between her volatility and Mina's stubbornness, perhaps they wouldn't make such a seamless pair.

_Tonight should have been seamless. _

It's a sudden, sobering thought. Of the hundred times she had imagined making love to Mina, not once had she ever imagined herself stopping.

Her head falls limply into her hands. "Have I just ruined tonight?"

She feels Mina shift next to her. A hand rests on her shoulder.

"The night is not over yet."

She jerks up. _Is she really suggesting that they–_

"Or it can be," Mina backpedals. "If you don't want to or if the moment's passed and you would rather sleep–"

"Rather sleep?" she interjects. "Good grief, you are ridiculous sometimes."

Mina blushes and shrugs. "Not _so_ ridiculous. At least I had the forethought not to dress."

Her eyes flicker down. It's embarrassingly obvious but she can't help herself. It's unfair, almost, for one person to be so lovely.

Swallowing hard, she gathers herself. "So not a cheap trick of power play, then?"

"Well, I wasn't exactly _opposed_ to it helping my case–"

Incredulous, Lucy pushes her shoulder and Mina laughs. She laughs, too, and it strikes her as strange, how quickly they've reached a place where they can.

Without a word, Mina takes her hand and lays it down gently on the gown in her lap. She toys with her fingers idly, dragging her fingertips up and down their lengths so light it almost tickles, then brushing down to draw circles on the upturned palm of her hand. Though she watches her own movements, Mina's mind seems to be lost somewhere else entirely. She hums to herself.

"What is it?" Lucy asks, and with more tenderness than she has ever felt Mina draws her hand to her mouth and presses a kiss to her skin.

"This has been the most extraordinarily strange night of my life."

It's barely more than a whisper, and whether 'strange' is a good or bad thing she doesn't know, but there's a certain wonder to Mina's voice that fills her; a veneration, even, in the delicate brush of her lips.

Slipping off the bed, she kneels down in front of Mina and takes her other hand.

"And the most extraordinary night of mine."

A shaky breath as Mina searches her eyes and then, having found whatever it was she was looking for, she pulls her upwards. Their lips move like they hadn't stopped at all; no build or escalation, no coaxing tongues because she doesn't need persuading and neither does Mina.

Rising from her knees she urges Mina backwards.

"Wait," Mina says, and tugs on her nightgown. "Take it off."

She pulls back, hesitates, then lets the gown slip from her shoulders and it isn't half as harrowing as she expected, not when Mina isn't looking anywhere but her eyes as she moves backwards on the bed and lies down. Mina is waiting for her, and as she drinks in her shallow breaths and hooded gaze it occurs to her that this is what trust looks like – _this_ is what it means to be truly naked. Not the bareness of skin and flesh but the exposure of soul, _her_ soul, like every secret she's ever kept is spread out on the bed between them and somehow, she doesn't know when it happened, Mina can see them all. It's there, plain as day in her eyes that she knows everything, understands _exactly_ how much this means to her, and for once she isn't terrified by the thought.

She is not alone.

Climbing onto the bed, she crawls forward until she's hands and knees above Mina. She tenses, as if maybe her stillness might help her capture the memory of how exquisite Mina looks like beneath her, the red of her parted lips and the flush of her skin, the mass of brunette curls that spread across her pillow, a tangled mess from her own hands.

She leans down and rests her forehead against Mina's.

"It's embarrassing how many times I've thought of this."

A hand touches her cheek.

"No. It's embarrassing how little I seem to know myself."

The sentiment is nothing but candid honesty and with a small, appreciative kiss to Mina's lips, she lowers herself down.

_And I look at you and imagine how you would feel beneath me..._

She shakes her head in disbelief.

As if all the imaginings in the world could have prepared her for this.

Mina isperfect. Everything – the insistent arm wrapped around her back, the firm press of their breasts and stomachs and legs, their fingers, threaded together and clenched above Mina's head – all of it is _perfect_. The sand has finally stopped falling and there are no words for how sweetly absorbed she is in the supple warmth of her skin, how enticed she is by her smell, that incomparable scent of Mina alone, no longer masked by some silly perfume but _there_ – everywhere – so succulent she can almost taste it.

She moves against her, a subtle rock of her body that she can't contain, and it draws a quiet moan from Mina that vibrates against her lips and she feels juvenile for thinking it but _she_ did that – _she_ caused that sound.

_Please let me remember it. _

She breaks away and opens her mouth to the pale expanse of Mina's neck. The touch on her back moves down, lower and lower still until it's grazing her, then holding her, then squeezing her closer and her head spins. It's a new touch, one she never knew could feel this good, and she lets go of Mina's other hand above her head so she can feel it on her, too. It grasps the back of her shoulder and pulls her down, Mina rising to meet her neck with her mouth, her gorgeous, red, open mouth and there's something about it that makes her dizzy, makes her recall the countless times she stared at it and craved it on her skin. She can't concentrate, can't focus on what's she doing and _no_ – this isn't about her.

She has to do this right.

Nudging Mina's face to the side so that her cheek lies against the pillow, she fixes her lips to the exposed jaw and follows it towards her ear. As she weaves her hand through tousled hair, her tongue inadvertently brushes the lobe of Mina's ear and a whimper, strained and low, makes her pause. She does it again, an experiment, and there the sound is again, more breathy this time and she's heard of this before – unexpected places on the body more sensitive than others – and the fact that she knows something like _this_ about Mina, something so erotic and intimate, swells inside her chest.

Gently, she bites down and Mina shudders beneath her.

"Oh my – Lucy."

It's a broken, heady whisper, surprised as much as it is aroused and she knows – she _knows_ – that no one else has found this place but her. Not Jonathan or Grayson or any other man; she's the only person in the world who knows this and the knowledge is intoxicating, addictive like nothing else she has ever felt before.

She slips her hand between them and ghosts her fingers along Mina's ribs to the outer curve of her breast. Mina presses into her, an almost imperceptible arch of her spine, and she doesn't know if it means what she thinks it does, whether the movement was even conscious at all, but she cups her breast and for a second nails dig into her back. She groans. Mina is full and soft beneath her palm, hard beneath the smooth glide of her thumb and it's incredible – she _feels_ incredible.

Her breath trembles on Mina's ear. "I could spend hours touching you."

A beat of silence, Mina squirms against her.

"I don't think I would survive it."

Mina's voice shakes with an implicit plea and pulling back, Lucy takes one look at the desperate need in her eyes and knows she wouldn't survive it, either.

Her hand tightens, lips crashing down to Mina's as fingers wind through her hair and clench. The firm tug sends a hot, visceral jolt to her stomach and maybe by now it shouldn't surprise her, that _this_ sort of thing can affect her so, but as much as she's learning about Mina she's learning more about herself; she never knew she would welcome assertiveness so eagerly.

From Mina's breast she feels her way down the skin beneath her. Mina tenses, the muscles of her stomach clenching under her fingers and it's a good tense, not nervous or scared but anticipating her touch, like Mina's been waiting for it as long as she's been wanting to give it though of course it isn't possible; there's a lifetime of want in her fingertips that can't be funnelled into a single night.

Still Mina urges her on with a tightening fist in her hair and she follows, her hand sliding down between Mina's legs. This time it is slower and she can feel everything more acutely than before; her soft, impossible wetness, the clench around her fingers as she pushes inside and the heavy breath of a moan, glorious and guttural, against her cheek. And all of it nearly undoes her, she's losing herself in the feeling and she doesn't want to, she has to make this perfect for Mina – _she_ has to be perfect for Mina.

If only for a night.

Drawing back, she presses her mouth to Mina's chest and works her way down, fingers still pushing inside, taking a nipple into her mouth though it's not what she's looking for. She moves on; down again passed ribs and stomach and navel, and she has no idea what she's doing but this might be her only chance, her only opportunity to touch Mina in all the ways she wants to and she can't _not_ do it, she has to–

"Lucy?"

Mina is on her elbows looking down at her, uncertain and edging on scared. She almost asks Mina to trust her but she can't feign the composure that would take; she is clueless and her hand is shaking and this is so very, _very_ far beyond her, so instead she reaches up and threads their fingers together.

"Just squeeze my hand if you want me to stop."

A pause, tense and overwrought, and Mina nods. Then she is moving that final bit down Mina's body and settling between her legs, and though she has no idea what she really expected she didn't think it would glisten like this, didn't think Mina could want her _this_ much. It almost fixes her to the spot but it's painfully clear that Mina is holding her breath, rigid as stone, and she can't afford for either of them to lose their nerve. Moving forward quickly, she presses her lips to Mina in a tentative but open-mouthed kiss, her tongue brushing over her at first then delving deeper at the shaky exhale of breath above her. She groans unrestrained, at the feel of Mina but more so at the taste of her, a taste she didn't realise there would be but one she would die to have again because it _is_ Mina, and though it's everywhere on her tongue there's still not enough of it. She needs there to be more of it.

Mina jerks beneath her, once with a quiet gasp and suddenly, though she has no idea what she's done differently or what she's done wrong, Mina squeezes her hand like she's trying to break her bones.

Panicked, she pulls back.

"No! I wasn't – that wasn't 'stop'."

On her elbows again, Mina looks down at her and it's not distress like she expected to see but overwhelming desire, a plea of almost anguish that shakes her to her core.

"It's good." Mina squeezes her hand again. "Please, it's so good."

It's all she needs to hear and more and with new confidence, she pushes Mina's legs further apart and tastes her again. A hand rests on the back of her head and though it doesn't pull her closer or clench her hair, her stomach still flips; Mina is holding her in place and just the thought of that is driving her mad.

Raising a finger to Mina's opening, she slips inside and Mina lets out a small, high-pitched cry. Of all the incredible sounds she has made tonight _that_ one is her favourite, and she drives a second finger inside and quickens her thrusts just to hear it again. Her mouth and hand move at once, no pattern or way to her ministrations but whatever she's doing it's working; Mina is chasing her fingers with her hips every time she pulls out and there's a new tension in the strained jolts of her body.

It's happening again, the build of it; she can hear it in Mina's panting breaths and see it in the tense tendons of her neck but something isn't right, she can't see her face.

She needs to see it happen.

She wouldn't forgive herself if she didn't see it happen.

Pulling away, she surges up Mina's body.

"No, don't st–"

She cuts Mina off with a hard press of her mouth and thrusts her fingers back inside. Mina cries out again and somehow it's even better this time because she feels it on her lips, swallows it with her mouth and knows that this time, without the need to plead for it, there's no chance of her ever forgetting that sound. She will take that sound to her grave.

Dragging her lips away, she looks down at Mina. "I need to see it."

Her own anguished plea. She prays that Mina understands it – she doesn't have the nerve to say it any more explicitly than that – but though Mina opens her eyes and nods she doesn't look at her, her gaze unfocused on the ceiling and it's not enough. It isn't nearly enough.

"Please look at me."

Clouded eyes fast clearing, Mina blinks and looks at her, and she can see the very instant that Mina understands what she's asking for.

There is far more gravity in her nod the second time.

She settles against Mina's side to give herself room and drives inside, faster and harder than before, her other hand clenched with Mina's above her head in such an unrelenting grip her fingers might never be the same. Their eyes are locked together and Mina; beautiful, unreachable _Mina_ – her blue eyes have never been more arresting than this, full of such brazen want yet vulnerable, too, at being watched this way maybe but still she doesn't look away from her. It feels like a gift, like Mina is giving herself in ways she wasn't before and she's doing it just for her.

"You are..." A choked whisper that she can't finish; words don't exist for everything that Mina is but it doesn't matter, she can see in Mina's eyes that she understands everything she's trying to say.

Mina grips the back of her neck. "You are, too."

She whimpers. It isn't possible; this amount of feeling rendered from three words isn't possible but it suffuses her, a rich incense winding through every inch of her being, flushing out every shame and loathing she has ever felt for herself to replace it with something else, something she's scared to call love because surely Mina couldn't, not in the way that _she_ does, but the inescapable fact that it _is_ something is rousing enough on its own.

A movement catches her eyes and she glances down. Mina's hand is on her own breast, not touching or even moving just resting there, and probably it's entirely subconscious but still it looks amazing. She wants it to move, wants to know what Mina would look like giving herself pleasure and–

"I think–" a broken gasp, "Lucy, look at me."

Her eyes dart up. Mina's mouth is open in a silent gasp and _god_, she has never loved her more than this; Mina could have closed her eyes and let it happen when she looked away but she didn't, she knows exactly how much this means to her and wants to give it to her.

She drives her fingers harder, pushing Mina higher and higher and it's about to happen; the hand around her neck is grasping her tighter, hips riding her hand with heavenly and unrestrained abandon. Then a cracked moan of her name – "Lucy" – one breathless, frozen moment as Mina strains against some agonizing bliss to keep her eyes open and on hers and it _is_ happening. No moan or cry or whimper, all sound from Mina caught in her throat as she seizes up against her and clenches down hard around her fingers. It is amazing, it is beyond amazing, and she understands exactly what Mina alluded to before because just the look of such excruciating pleasure is enough to put her on the edge.

But then Mina is shaking, crumbling into her arms and somehow that is more disarming, and with a delirious, shuddering breath she buries herself into Mina's neck.

Wrapped around each other, they lie there for a few panting minutes until she slips her fingers from Mina. She feels regret; she doesn't want to leave the warmth of her but tonight has been everything it could have been; more than she thought it could ever be.

Mina presses a kiss into her hair. "My hands are numb," she whispers.

Pulling back, Lucy only half suppresses her smile. "And mine broken I wager."

Mina laughs, picking up her hand and kissing her fingers. Contrary to the light tease, there's a soft reverence to the brush of her lips.

"That was..." Mina searches her eyes and lifts her shoulders helplessly. "I can't begin to explain what that was."

She pauses, worrying her lips together. "Was it what you imagined before? As good as–"

Mina puts a quieting finger to her lips then slides her hand to her cheek. "An hour ago I had no idea what to imagine. I may have tried to picture your dreams but I never thought you would dream of this."

"You would be surprised at what I dream," Lucy whispers, turning her face to press her lips to Mina's palm.

Mina looks curious, like she wants to ask exactly what she does dream of but instead she pulls her down for a long and languid kiss.

Afterwards, she settles down against Mina's side beneath the crook of her arm, head resting against her chest as she draws soft patterns on the breastbone before her.

It's a new sort of comfort; they've never lain like this before.

"Mina?" she asks softly.

Mina hums sleepily in response, her hand combing through her hair.

She takes a deep breath. "I know tonight doesn't mean everything I want it to mean."

"Lucy–"

"Please let me finish." She waits for Mina's silent assent and steels herself. "By now you must know that you own my heart completely, and I know that you love me dearly as your friend. I just need you to promise me that you won't let that afflict you; that no matter how hard you think my heart might break if this never happens again, you will choose the love that _you_ want."

Mina hesitates. "But how could I not think of you–"

"Promise me, Mina."

A swollen moment of quiet drags passed and Mina kisses the top of her head. "I promise."

Her eyes clench shut and she's glad Mina can't see her face. The promise is more bitter than sweet but she had to make sure that friendship or loyalty wouldn't sway Mina's decision. As scared as she is at the thought of rejection, worse is the thought that she might keep Mina from some greater happiness than her.

For all the kindness paid to her, it is the least she can do.

Mina takes her hand and presses it to her chest. "Alexander – he said something to me, on the balcony that night we went to the bohemian party. He said that sometimes the people and places we are meant for take us by surprise."

Mina strokes her hair, squeezes her hand.

She holds her breath.

"I can provide you no certainty of what will happen between us. But tonight, being with you this way...it feels like everything I'll ever need."

She exhales deeply and squeezes Mina's hand back in thanks.

An ideal promise it might not be, but for tonight at the very least, it is promise enough for her.

* * *

It feels like any other morning at first.

It's dark behind her eyelids; her mother is yet to wilfully disturb her slumber by throwing open her curtains so it mustn't be too late. She turns over in bed to fall back asleep and something strikes her as different; the silk feel of sheets on her skin – on _all_ of her skin – and in a joyous wave of memory last night comes flooding back to her.

Giddy, she opens her eyes and–

_No. _

_Please, God, no. _

Mina is gone.

Hastily she looks around the room but Mina's dress has disappeared from the back of her chair and their two nightgowns are neatly folded on her dresser.

She feels sick.

A brush of her hand over Mina's side of the bed and it is cold. How long has Mina been gone for? Surely she wouldn't have left in the middle of the night, surely she wouldn't–

Her fingers connect with something beneath the covers. She flips them over and her breath catches.

A letter.

Mina has left her a letter.

She might throw up. Could she have been so completely wrong about last night that the only rejection Mina saw fit to give her was a note? Could she–

No, she doesn't want to know – she doesn't want to know at _all_ but despite the sinking feeling in her stomach her hand still reaches for it.

Breath held, armour on.

She unfolds the letter and opens it on her lap.


	3. Chapter 3

_My Darling Lucy, _

_I pray that you have found this letter without too much undue panic. Perhaps I should be waking you instead of writing this at your dresser, but I believe some things are more readily accepted on paper, and since I shortly have to be at class there simply isn't the time to argue with you. _

_(Not to mention the sacrilegious act it would be if I deprived your excessive affinity for lying in in the morning.)_

_But like you, I am lost as to where and how I should begin. It seems impossible to capture everything that last night was in the little time that I have; in this ink of plain black that could never reflect the spectrum of everything that I feel. Truth be told, I can scarcely explain this confusing sense of clarity to myself, but if there is one thing I can assure you of it is that such confusion does not result from any uncertainty of feeling. On the contrary, what I feel is so glaringly stark it truly confounds me that I never thought of you this way before. _

_I love you, Lucy, as the friend you have always been and now as the lover you have somehow become. It feels so strange to call you that (and honestly it took a nerve-racking minute for me to pen it), but as inexperienced as both you and I might be, I cannot think of what we did as anything else but making love. Easily I could fill this page with all the reasons it was the most incredible night of my life, but in lieu of that, the purpose of this letter is really this: _

_I have made my decision._

_I choose you. _

_After class I plan on speaking with Jonathan, though what I will say I have no idea. The thought of breaking his heart sickens me, but if the alternative is losing you or never being with you this way again, I could not bear it – would not bear it in all likelihood, and I can only live with myself betraying Jonathan once. Saying that, perhaps the greater betrayal would be to you; one night and you seem to own me in ways I did not think were possible. _

_I know this must seem hasty; a rash decision made in the afterglow of a night like none I have had before, but as I look at you now in bed I find myself robbed of logic. As girls we used to talk of men; of handsome, gracious men we would one day lose our minds around; men we would fall madly, senselessly in love with. And somehow with maturity there came a solemn acceptance that love was far less consuming than that, but last night, Lucy – last night I did feel consumed, you drove me mad with the things you did, so does it stand then that my absence of logic is a realer mark of being in love? _

_If I was not so rushed writing this I would have posed that question as a statement. _

_I know what it is that I feel. _

_I have not the time to write more but just in case you feel inclined to question my motives; if you think perhaps I might be breaking the promise I made to you last night, know that my reasons are far more selfish than that. For me it is not so much a question of who I can be with, but who I cannot be without. _

_And I cannot be without you, Lucy. _

_I hope my words assure you as much as I intend them to; if I have given half to you with this letter what yours gave to me you should be content. Otherwise, if you are in need of more persuasion, visit me at the house at seven. _

_I will be waiting for you._

_Mina_

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks for readying, everyone. And a special thanks to my beta, Truly, who did wonders for my confidence. Any and all feedback is welcome, constructive criticism included. I've very much enjoyed this month-long writing endeavour (I write sloowwww), so if anyone feels like flicking me a prompt, you can do so at my tumblr - akira107. I might fill smaller things over there and leave AO3 for longer works like this one. Thanks again!


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